Failing to prepare is preparing to fail. Find out about the mentors - use Rapportive, LinkedIn, Twitter, whatever means necessary. Make a wish list of who you want to talk to and what. Make a secondary wish list in case the primary wish list falls through.

Meet with a wide range of mentors:

Emphasize breadth, not depth, unless you clearly have a startup idea that you are getting feedback on and making progress with. Cover all angles - from angels, VCs, operators/entrepreneurs, and others.

Don’t just go for the big names:

I met a ton of big names, but nothing against them - the most useful were two mentors that have become incredible friends and were super helpful when I applied to TechStars NYC. Remember that the big names rarely have time to follow up, whereas the emerging mentors show more TLC.

Network, network, network with fellow PBCers

PBCers go on and do incredible things - classmates Richard Lau is leading the East Coast chapter of Vets in Tech, Aaron Alfson is working on an incredible stealth project, David Cass from Uvize is at the Kaplan Accelerator program, and Gregory Coleman from Nexercise is at Techstars Chicago.

Meet people. Learn from them. Stay in touch.

Rocket-fuel your brand

Now’s the best time to build up your brand and company. Patrick Lewis, HackStar from Techstars NYC did it through his Medium post. Countless others at last year’s PBC. Think about what you want to do - and execute.